Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.  Having listened to the promo EP from Rose Hill Drive earlier in the year, the band reeked of blues-rock influences and very little else.  You can’t fault a band for trying real hard to make a classic album the first time out (the Meet the Beatles-aping cover, the “ellipsis suite” of songs right in the middle, the 7-minute rock epic “Reptilian Blue”, etc.), but you can fault them for not bringing a single original idea to the table.  The band works best when they’re at slow speed (like the lovely stripped-down acoustic ballad “It’s Simple”—how ironic), but when they’re blaring through the sub-Stones guitar noodling, you simply have to hold down your fast-forward button to get to anything beyond dull.  (Worse yet, their EP featured an “EP-only” track called “Intruder” where they displayed a fantastic mastery of rock dynamics—and of course, they leave it off their full-length; how very unfortunate).

• "Showdown" MP3